We often hear the nation’s infrastructure is crumbling, but state highway conditions are the best they’ve been in 19 years, according to Reason Foundation’s 19th Annual Highway Report. Unfortunately, the recession is partly responsible for the improvement in road conditions: people are driving less which has helped slow pavement deterioration and reduced traffic congestion and fatalities.

The annual Reason Foundation study measures the condition and cost-effectiveness of state-owned roads in 11 categories, including deficient bridges, urban traffic congestion, fatality rates, pavement condition on urban and rural Interstates and on major rural roads, and the number of unsafe narrow rural lanes. National performance in all of those key areas improved in 2008, the most recent year with complete data available.

Drivers in California, Minnesota, Maryland, Michigan and Connecticut are stuck in the worst traffic. Over 65 percent of all urban Interstates are congested in each of those five states. But nationally, the percentage of urban Interstates that are congested fell below 50 percent for the first time since 2000, when congestion standards were revised.

Motorists in California and Hawaii have to look out for the most potholes on urban Interstates. In those two states, 25 percent of urban interstate pavement is in poor condition. Alaska and Rhode Island have the bumpiest rural pavement, each with about 10 percent in poor condition. However, nationally, pavement conditions on urban Interstates are the best they’ve been since 1993, and rural primary roads are the smoothest they’ve been since 1993 also.

Rhode Island has the most troubled bridges in the country, with over 53 percent of bridges deficient. For comparison, just 10 percent of top-ranked Nevada’s bridges are rated deficient. Across the country, over 141,000 (23.7 percent) of America’s bridges were structurally deficient or functionally obsolete in 2008, the lowest percentage since 1984.

With the recession reducing driving, and engineering improving road design and car safety features, traffic fatalities have steadily fallen to the lowest levels since the 1960s. Massachusetts has the safest roads with just 0.67 fatalities per 100 million miles driven. Montana and Louisiana have the highest fatality rates, at 2.12 and 2.02 fatalities per million miles driven.

Overall, North Dakota, Montana and Kansas have the most cost-effective state highway systems. Rhode Island, Alaska, California, Hawaii and New York have the least cost-effective roads. The full Annual Highway Report rankings are:

Over the last two years New Jersey has moved up from last to 45th in the overall rankings, but still spends dramatically more than every other state. New Jersey spends $1.1 million per mile on state roads. The second biggest spender, Florida, spends $671,000 per mile and California spends $545,000 per mile. South Carolina had the lowest expenses, spending just $34,000 per mile.

California also squanders a massive amount of transportation money that never makes it onto roads, spending $93,464 in administrative costs for every mile of state road. New York ($89,194 per mile), Massachusetts ($71,982), and New Jersey ($62,748) also compare poorly to states like Texas ($6,529) and Virginia ($6,370) that spend dramatically less on administrative costs.

“We’re seeing several factors combine to produce significant improvement in highway conditions,” said David T. Hartgen, author of the report and emeritus professor of transportation studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “Over the last several years, states invested a lot more money to improve pavement and bridges. Spending increased 8 percent from 2007 to 2008, and per-mile spending on state roads has almost tripled since 1984, so you’d hope and expect to see improved performance. As pavement gets better, roads are widened and bridges get repaired, you’d also expect safety to improve. And the significant reduction in vehicle miles traveled during the recession has also played a role in slowing system decay. But as the states run short of money and deal with large budget deficits, we’ll see if this progress can be continued.”

The study finds over half of all state-owned highways across the country are congested and 25 percent of bridges are deficient or functionally obsolete.

Since 1984, per-mile total disbursements on state highways have increased by 262 percent. In 2007, U.S. states spent over $109 billion on state-owned highways, a 10 percent increase over 2006. But not everyone is getting their money’s worth. Taxpayers in New York, Hawaii, New Jersey, California, Rhode Island and Alaska have the worst-performing highway systems in the nation.

The Reason Foundation study examines state highway systems in 11 categories, including congestion, pavement condition, fatalities, deficient bridges and total spending. The annual report is based on information that each state reported for the year 2007.

Top-ranked North Dakota, which has had the best performing system each year since 2001, scored well by having the least interstate and rural mileage in poor condition and ranking first in maintenance spending. New Mexico continues its impressive improvement. The state was 27th in 2000, but now ranks 2nd in overall performance and cost-effectiveness. Kansas is 3rd overall, South Carolina, with one of the largest state-owned highway systems in the country, is 4th and Montana rounds out the top five.

Delaware posted the biggest improvement in the overall rankings, moving from 28th to 11th by cutting spending without sacrificing road condition. Michigan improved from 42nd to 30th thanks to an improvement in rural pavement condition. Mississippi also posted double-digit gains.

Four states fell in the overall rankings by double-digits – Missouri, Oregon, Vermont and Indiana, which fell 16 spots, from 15th to 31st, because of a sharp decline in urban interstate condition and an increase in spending per mile.

]]>17th Annual Report on the Performance of State Highway Systems (1984-2006)https://reason.org/policy-study/17th-annual-report-on-the-perf/
Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:00:00 +0000http://reason.org/policy-study/17th-annual-report-on-the-perf/In a sign that more and more areas are being impacted by traffic jams and infrastructure problems, 35 states are now reporting that at least 40 percent of their urban interstate highways are congested, up from 31 states the previous year, according to an annual study of the nation’s highways. With urban congestion even hitting South Dakota, the list of states without any clogged interstates is down to just three: Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming.

Drivers in California, Minnesota, and North Carolina are stuck in the nation’s worst traffic – over 70 percent of urban interstate highways in those states qualified as congested. California earned the dubious honor of ‘most congested’ state – 83 percent of its interstates are congested, according to the 17th annual highway study by the Reason Foundation, a nonprofit think tank Eighteen states now report that at least half of their urban interstate highways are congested.

Overall, 50.7 percent of the nation’s urban interstate highways were congested in 2006, a slight 1 percent improvement from 2005, when 51.8 percent were jammed. The statistical improvement is due, at least partly, to many states increasing the declared capacities of their highways.

Deficient bridges were thrust into the spotlight in August 2007 because of the tragic Minneapolis bridge collapse. Minnesota actually ranks 5th best in the nation, with 13 percent of its bridges deficient. Of the nearly 600,000 highway bridges in the country, 24.1 percent were reported deficient and/or functionally obsolete in 2006, a minor improvement from 2005 when 25.5 were deemed deficient. At the current rate of repair it will take 62 years for today’s deficient bridges to be brought up to date.

“Gridlock isn’t going away,” said David T. Hartgen, Ph.D., the study’s lead author. ‘States are going to have to prioritize and direct their transportation money to projects specifically designed to reduce congestion if we are going to reverse this troubling trend.”

Drivers in California, Minnesota, New Jersey and North Carolina are stuck in the worst traffic, with over 70 percent of urban Interstates in those states qualifying as congested.

The Reason Foundation study measures the performance of state-owned roads and highways from 1984 to 2005 in 12 different categories, including traffic fatalities, congestion, pavement condition, bridge condition, highway maintenance and administrative costs, to determine each state’s ranking and cost-effectiveness.

The report finds that fatality rates vary significantly from state to state. Massachusetts reported the lowest fatality rate – 0.79 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. Meanwhile, Montana’s roads were the deadliest, with 2.256 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles. The national average was 1.453 fatalities, up slightly from 1.440 in 2004.

The study does find some good news for drivers. The percentage of roads in “poor condition” fell sharply for both interstate highways and major rural roads. Since 1998, the percentage of poor urban interstate mileage has been reduced by 31 percent. The number of bridges deemed deficient, meaning they are eligible for federal repair dollars, also fell slightly in 2005.

In the overall rankings, North Dakota and South Carolina took the top spots for the second consecutive year. Meanwhile, New Jersey’s gridlocked highways, poor pavement conditions and high repair costs put the state last in overall cost-effectiveness for the eighth consecutive year.